Starship Waking

by C. Gockel

  Her ears flicked. He was from the sticks.

  “No Weere is where the weere live,” she explained.

  “That is counterintuitive…” He looked heavenward. “Though I suppose humans often are.”

  She’d known no humans to be so casually dismissive of their species, at least not around a weere. She almost smiled at the flippancy in his tone, but schooled her features to neutral. Sometimes people from the interior didn’t understand how things were between weere and humans, but they always learned. Better not to get too comfortable with him. Her eyes roved his face. He was too handsome. He’d be accepted into New Prime human society very soon.

  “It’s a pun,” she explained. “No Weere is nowhere you’d want to be if you are a human. It’s too close to the Exclusion Zone.”

  “Well,” he said, looking around the home. “I can think of worse places to be.” He smiled, revealing a charming dimple. “Thank you for letting me stay.”

  She looked at her plate. He didn’t understand the way things were. Not at all. “So, you came here looking for work. What line of work were you looking for?”

  “Well, I have a number of talents—”

  “Cheep?” said the werfle.

  “—but probably chef would be most appropriate considering the circumstances. I don’t suppose you’d know of any openings?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “Not unless you want to work in domestic service at the house I work at, Mr. Niano.”

  “Call me Sixty. Would it pay for a trip to Libertas?”

  She snorted, shaking her head. It was strange feeling worldly wise around, well, anyone. “You don’t pay for a trip aboard the Leetier. You’re invited aboard after applying for a seat sometimes years in advance so they can run a proper background check. And then you pay, and it costs more than a weere or a human man from the working class could ever afford.”

  She swore the werfle sighed, and she reached down and scratched it behind the ear. It leaned into her touch.

  He tapped the brochure. “So, you have this just as a…fantasy?”

  Color rose in her cheeks. “Actually, I’m going on the next trip out. I was invited, or my employer was, by someone important.” She ducked her head. “But I have fantasized about it, yes.” For her whole life.

  “Well, where there is will, there is a way,” Mr. Niano said. “Or in this case, there was a weere with a will.”

  She looked up and found him smiling at her, lifting an eyebrow. He glanced down at the werfle at her feet. “And there are more ways than one to skin a werfle.”

  The werfle put its ears back and hissed in Mr. Niano’s direction .

  “I thought you admired my sense of humor, Carl Sagan,” Sixty said, theatrically putting a hand to his chest and batting his eyes at the clearly annoyed creature.

  Volka’s lips pursed at both of their antics.

  Returning his attention to Volka, Mr. Niano said, “So, this job…it would provide plenty of food?” He looked down at his plate. “I have a tapeworm.”

  She blinked.

  Putting a finger on his chin, he looked heavenward again. “Maybe you don’t use that expression here?”

  “Rawr!” said the werfle.

  “Like we do in the interior,” he said, raising an eyebrow at Carl. He speared an enormous bite of French toast. “I eat a lot,” he explained before popping it into his mouth.

  Volka stared at him. It just wasn’t done…humans, human men especially, did not work as domestics. He was just too backwater to know that. If she accepted his offer, he might resent her later if he took it and was ridiculed for it. However, it would take him a while to find a real job, and he didn’t appear to have much in the way of, well, anything. Her eyes went to a pack on the floor, and the leather-looking jacket on top of it. She bit her lip. “It will provide you with plenty of food and a roof over your head, too, Mr. Niano.”

  “Call me Sixty,” he responded.

  “I can’t possibly call you—”

  “And I’ll take that job,” he cut her off with a smile that was too genuine and achingly perfect. She gulped. He was going to get her into a world of trouble, she just knew it.

  “Let Volka carry me,” Carl Sagan complained over the ether.

  6T9 had him slung over one arm. They were walking on what passed for a road in No Weere. The ground was muddy and the werfle didn’t want his paws to get dirty. They were surrounded on either side by shanties that made Volka’s home seem palatial.

  Volka had a pack on her back. Her ears were flicking as though seeking a distant sound. It was drizzling, but she carried her umbrella closed and clasped in both hands. His eyes slid to her nails. They were short, blunt, and light gray at the cuticle and darker at the tips. He was beginning to suspect it wasn’t an artful polish job, but her natural pigmentation.

  Shaking his head, he retorted over the ether, “She’s loaded down enough.”

  There were plenty of weere about. They didn’t seem like one race, but many. Some were very wolf-like, with snouts, ears, tails, and bodies that didn’t seem quite suited for bipedal locomotion. Others were more human than their hostess, and could almost pass if it weren’t for amber eyes, wolf ears, or claws at the ends of their fingers instead of nails.

  “But she gives me ear scratches,” Carl Sagan replied and then purred. “And her breath on my stomach this morning was exquisite.”

  6T9’s circuits heated in frustration. “You make it sound sexual,” he hissed over the ether.

  “I did not!” the werfle replied. “Her breath was warm. I like warmth and scratches.”

  The static of jealousy crawled under 6T9’s skin. It was his nature to want to make humans happy. To have Volka relaxed enough to sleep with him would have fulfilled that nature—at least a little. Instead, that honor went to a mind-controlling werfle. 6T9 stepped too heavily and almost slipped in the mud.

  “Reowwrrrrr!” Carl protested. Over the ether, he complained, “Don’t you dare drop me! I have to clean my fur with my tongue!”

  “Are you sure you should bring him?” Volka asked. Ears flicking, and eyes shifting nervously to the side.

  “Where I go, he goes,” 6T9 replied. When he followed her gaze, a group of weere quickly looked to the side. He couldn’t help but notice that they scowled, their ears were back, and lips were curled. One of the group had a wolf-like snout, and he saw the curve of wolf-like teeth. “Are we in danger?” he whispered.

  Volka shook her head in the negative but hastened her steps. “No, you’re in no danger.”

  For a moment, 6T9 felt a bit better, but then his Q-comm chip sparked. “Are you in danger?”

  Not looking at him, she said, “It will pass.”

  6T9’s steps felt heavier. “Why…?”

  “Well, you’re human, aren’t you?” she said. “Weere women and human men aren’t supposed to…you know,” she said.

  Even without a Q-comm chip, he’d have been able to parse that euphemism.

  She added quickly, “But you’re in no danger. No one wants security coming after them.”

  “That doesn’t precisely make me feel better,” he said.

  For the first time since they’d left her little house on stilts, Volka’s eyes met his. They were a shocking amber color and lined by what he’d mistaken for kohl-eyeliner at first, but on closer inspection was natural pigmentation. She quickly looked away again. “Don’t worry about it, Mr. Niano.”

  “Call me Sixty,” 6T9 said just as a group of five weere males emerged from between two shanties and started walking toward them, their eyes on Volka. Raising the umbrella, she drew to a halt, gaze locked on the tallest member of the group.

  The weere man had black hair and tan skin. His ears were slightly pointed but not covered by velvet, and his eyes were human brown, too. There was something odd about his jaw structure, but 6T9 couldn’t place what it was.

  “It’s not worth it, Daniel,” Volka said.

  6T9 took in the size and number of the weere
. His Q-comm hummed, trying to assess what would be worth what , and found too many variables to compute.

  Pointing at 6T9, Daniel said, “He doesn’t belong here.” When he spoke, 6T9 caught a glimpse of long canine teeth and the chemical signature of fresh blood.

  “He doesn’t know the half of it,” Carl hissed over the ether.

  Daniel shook his head. Volka’s ears started flicking madly, as though plagued by an insect.

  Scratching behind a gray-velvety wolf ear, one of the men facing them whispered, “She broke a man’s toes with that umbrella.”

  6T9’s Q-comm began conjuring up the various scenarios where that accident could occur, and he shook his head, trying to make the data stop.

  Daniel lifted his chin. “This is why weere women are of no use.” He strode past Volka and 6T9, and the other weere men followed. Volka’s shoulders fell as they passed. Then she took a deep breath and they resumed walking .

  6T9’s Q-comm was humming, reviewing the glimpse of canine teeth, the fresh blood on Daniel’s breath, and the human shape of Daniel’s jaw. 6T9’s circuits dimmed with the knowledge that the blood was with 89 percent certainty Daniel’s own, and was caused by his jaw being the wrong shape for his canine teeth.

  Volka turned right, and 6T9 followed. Ahead he saw a chain-link fence that was nearly three meters high topped with barbed wire. There was a guard house where human men stood with rifles. They wore Luddeccean Green, but zooming in on the patches on their shoulders, 6T9 read “Security.” It wasn’t the Guard then, just local police. He almost sighed in relief, but then he noticed that as weere stepped through, the security officers would pull a few of them to the side and make them take out papers.

  “Erp,” said 6T9, slowing his steps.

  Carl Sagan hissed in his mind, “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got this.”

  Volka blinked at the sky and looked side to side, ears flicking again.

  “You’re going to mind control them?” 6T9 asked.

  “I told you I can’t do that!” Carl’s ears flattened. “If I could I would have avoided this little detour and snagged a human’s or weere’s brain on Libertas. I can nudge them, though.”

  They stepped up to the gate, and a guard walked toward them. Volka froze, and because she did, 6T9 did too. The guard glanced down at Volka with what might have been pity, walked around her, and stopped not a hands breadth from 6T9’s nose.

  6T9 would guess the man’s age to be about forty. The man wasn’t soft, but he was on the stocky side with a barrel chest. He had salt and pepper hair, and there were prominent lines in his brow and beside his eyes. His thin lips were set in a frown, and his expression was altogether very stern. 6T9’s skin heated, and he bit his bottom lip to keep from licking it. His first impulse was to say, “Hello, sir, I’ve been a very bad, bad man. Maybe you should punish me?” even though the man’s pupils were not dilated and he exhibited no other outward signs of sexual arousal. 6T9 didn’t say that though, because his Q-comm was humming and filling him with the knowledge that if he was arrested, Volka might be arrested, too, and somehow he had already unwittingly put her in danger, which went against every line of his code.

  Adding to that, Carl was urging, “Don’t forget Sundancer! She needs us!”

  “I hadn’t forgotten her,” 6T9 thought in reply, even though he had.

  “Let’s see your papers,” the guard ground out.

  “I thought you were taking care of this!” 6T9 cried in the ether to Carl Sagan.

  “Give me a minute!” Carl replied.

  6T9 dropped the werfle. “Reowr!” protested Carl.

  Making a show of pulling around his hover pack—which hopefully looked enough like a backpack not to draw too much attention, 6T9 said, “Um…just a moment…I ahh…”

  Carl Sagan threaded between the man’s legs. The security officer jumped back, shook his head, and then met 6T9’s eyes. “Reconsider your life choices, Son,” he growled. Shaking his head, the man walked away.

  6T9 heard Volka gulp audibly. Her shoulders drooped.

  “Whew! I made him think you’ve been ‘weering’ around with Volka,” Carl thought triumphantly .

  Volka’s ears went back, and she put a hand to her mouth. Her cheeks darkened.

  “Weering around?” 6T9 asked silently.

  “That’s what they call whoring,” Carl replied, batting a paw at 6T9’s leg. “Pick me up.”

  “Maybe you should walk,” 6T9 snapped aloud, making Volka jump.

  She did not look at him as she moved through the security checkpoint and then down the road outside No Weere to a tiny shelter where a group of weere stood staring off into space. Volka did the same, standing on the sidewalk, facing a road that was freshly paved.

  6T9 tried to copy her stance and her vacant stare, but couldn’t help glancing about. There were humans and weere outside No Weere—although the humans had their own shelter that they were standing beside a block down, and they were dressed very differently. Weere men and women wore loose trousers and formless long-sleeved shirts in neutral colors. 6T9 noticed that some, like Volka’s, seemed to be made of slightly better fabric with more expensive detailing. Some of the men’s clothing, though the same design, seemed to be made of heavier material and had more pockets and loops, possibly for tools. The female weere were of all ages. The male weere were noticeably older.

  He noticed the humans wore form-fitting clothing that was differentiated by sex. The men wore suits, or pants and shirts that emphasized their shoulders, and kept their hair cut short. The women wore skirts and tight-fitting blouses. If they were pregnant—and there appeared to be many pregnant women—they wore dresses. Their hair was long. On the other side of the road, there was a billboard with a pregnant human woman with a brilliant smile, and other humans, presumably her husband and children. Next to their picture were printed the words, We’re doing our part to rebuild Luddeccea!

  “I didn’t think you’d have a problem with ‘weering,’” Carl commented, snapping 6T9 from his observations. The werfle’s ears were back, and his tail was bending in a question mark.

  Around 6T9, a few weere started nervously scratching their ears and shaking their heads.

  “I don’t,” 6T9 hissed over the ether. “I hold the world’s oldest profession in the highest esteem—you don’t think I bought my invisi-filaments, do you? But Volka’s people probably don’t. Humans can be weird about sex, even though they invented it.”

  “I don’t think that was a human invention,” Carl replied.

  “You know what I mean. They get so emotional.” 6T9 rolled his eyes. “So much drama, shame, jealousy, anger, and frustration. Sometimes I don’t know how they enjoy it at all.”

  “And that sums up the emotional range of the deed?” Carl asked.

  “How would I know? I’m not human.” A low mechanical roar drew 6T9’s eyes. He looked down the road and whispered, “Nebulas, what is that?”

  A few weere turned to look at him.

  Clearing her throat, Volka said, “He’s from the interior provinces. He got…lost…?”

  The weere shook their heads. One snorted. They all turned toward the approaching monstrosity. It was a large vehicle on wheels, which hadn’t been so strange even during 6T9’s previous time on the planet before Revelation. Out in the provinces, it wasn’t even unusual to see lizzar occasionally pulling wagons. But this thing…Black smoke puffed out of its rear. It had two headlights at the front and mirrors on either side. It was made of chrome and had a large, bisected front window and smaller windows behind it. All in all, it looked like a large, metal, wheeled caterpillar farting exhaust.

  Leaning closer, Volka whispered, “That’s the bus I told you about.”

  6T9 blinked. In civilized places, “busses” hovered above the ground, but he supposed the sort of computing power necessary for that might be verboten in this neck of the galaxy. He sniffed and red lights went off in the periphery of his vision—the fumes were toxic. Accessing his Q-comm, he
queried the historical archives on Time Gate 1 and his eyes widened. “Carl Sagan, that machine is a replica of a bus that hasn’t existed since the 1950s.”

  “Pardon?” said Volka.

  Which was when he realized he’d spoken aloud. “Nothing,” he said as he and Volka stepped into the line to board. Her ears went flat against her head.

  “Squeak,” said Carl Sagan, and her ears perked forward again.

  Taking off her coat, she picked up the werfle, wrapped him up in it, and whispered, “Stay still. You’re not allowed on the bus, but the driver is human—he won’t smell you.”

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Carl hissed into 6T9’s mind. Even though the werfle was only a lump beneath Volka’s jacket, 6T9 could picture his flattened ears and swishing tail.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Carl Sagan,” 6T9 replied over the ether as the line moved forward. “This is going to be the part of the adventure that when we retell it, everyone will tell us to skip through. We’re going to relax here on Luddeccea for a few days. I’ll do a little cooking…you can nap in sunbeams…” His voice drifted off. On the side of the bus was a picture of a boy sitting in the dark. His eyes glowed blue. Beside his picture were printed the words, Do you know someone interested in computer science? Help is available. Next to that was a string of numbers. A dove with a leaf in its mouth was below that and in archaic script were the words, The Luddeccean Priesthood Cares.

  His processor hummed and he had a horrible feeling that his time on Luddeccea might not be boring at all.

  10

  Casualties of War

  The werfle sprang from Volka’s arms as soon as they were off the bus. As if knowing where they were going, it tore through Mr. Darmadi’s gates and into the forest just beyond the outer wall. Volka chased after it; it was a convenient distraction. Sixty—Mr. Niano—had tried to sit next to her on the bus, and then when she said, “Mr. Niano, you should sit at the front,” he’d asked her, “Why don’t you call me Sixty?” The whole bus had stared. Her feet pumped faster, remembering the awkwardness of the situation and the angry eyes on her. She felt like she might growl at him if he spoke to her again.